TINDORA CHUTNEY

Once I was watching some Telugu channel but I don’t remember which channel it was. I think it must be 3 years back but normally I do not watch any regional channel. It was fortunate that while changing channel I started watching this channel because there was a cookery show coming on that. Honestly I do not remember anything about this programme what channel it was???, what was the programme name?? Who was hosting??? Nothing, only I remember the recipe came on it because it was really interesting.


So the recipe is all about a chutney which is made from the Tindora (Ivy guard). In India, we make different curry from tindora and while making this we throw some tindora which is over ripen. Here is the key of the recipe, yes the chutney is made from over ripen tindora. Take a look how I have made this.

TINDORA CHUTNEY ( DHONDAKAYA PACAHDI)

Preparation Time-5 min

Cooking Time-10-15 min

Serves- 4 Persons

Ingredients

Ripen Tindora -10-12 (Cut in half)

Tomatoes-2 (Medium in size)

Bengal Gram Dal- 3 tabs

Whole Black gram -1 ½ tabs

Dry Red Chillies- 6-7 (or as spicy as you need)

Oil-1 tabs

Mustard seeds-1 tsp

Asafoetida powder- ¼ tsp

Salt- to taste

Method

• Heat oil in a pan.

• Add mustard seeds and allow it to crack.

• Now put Bengal gram Dal. Black gram and red chillies.

• Fry them till they are golden brown colour.

• Remove it on a plate and allow it get cool down.

• Now add tindora to same pan along with tomatoes and cook till it is ¾ cooked.

• Remove it from pan and allow it to get cooled.

• Now in chutney jar, put the Dal and chillies and grind it to a form of granular powder.

• Now add tindora, tomatoes, asafoetida along with salt in this and grind it to a form of chutney thickness.

• If you want you can season this chutney.



ENJOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LAUKI AUR CHANNA DAL KI SABJI

Recently I have posted a recipe which I am eating regularly now a days and believe me it is really effective. I have lost 8 kgs weight in 3 months with the help of exercise and diet plan. I am just waiting for the day when I will see the weighing machine to show 52 kgs when I stand on it.

Lots say that diet foods are boring but I don’t believe this. I am on diet from past 3 months but I never got bored. I did not restrict myself from any food, but I have reduced quantity of those foods which have lots of fat and carbohydrate in it. Here is another one recipe which you can eat with roti and it has hardly 100 calorie in it.

 LAUKI AUR CHANNA DAL KI SABJI

Preparation Time-5 min
Cooking Time-15 min
Serves- 4 Persons

Ingredients

Bottle guard (Lauki)-500 grams (cut in cubes, I used with peel but for you it’s yours choice.)

Bengal gram Dal-1/2 cup

Kasuri Methi- 2 tabs

Coriander powder- 2 tabs

Chilli powder-1 tsp

Turmeric powder-1/2 tsp

Salt-to taste

Gram masala-1/2 tsp

Onion-1 (Finely chopped)

Tomatoes-2 (Finely chopped)

Oil-1 tsp

Cumin seeds-1/2 tsp

Method

·         Wash and soak gram dal for about two hours in water.

·         Now take a pressure cooker and put gram dal along with bottle guard, turmeric powder and salt.

·         Cook in medium flame till you get 2 whistles.

·          Allow cooker to get cool down its own.

·         Now heat a pan and put oil in it.

·         Add cumin seeds and allow it to change its colour.

·         Add chopped onion and fry till it’s transparent.

·         Now put chopped tomatoes along with all dry masalas and kasuri methi.

·         Cook till tomatoes are done.

·         Now add boiled gram dal and bottle guard into it.

·         Cook till you get desire thickness.

·         Serve with Roti.

DALIA UPMA (WHEAT RAVA UPMA)

2 years ago when my princess has arrived in my life, I did not realise that how my life will be after 2 years. Time has passed and I enjoyed a lot my motherhood and still enjoying but during this I did not realise that my enjoyment made me to forget about my health. I have put up 20 kegs extra weight during this time.

It was first time for me when my husband told that I should take care of me and my health. Then the same day I have decided that I will come back to same shape again. I joined gym the very next day and started having 1000 calorie diet every day. Today I am writing down a recipe which I am having alternate day and believe me it is very effective. It is nothing else but very common dish i.e., Wheat Rava Upma or called as kichadi also. So here is diet version of my upma but healthy people may increase fat quantity in this by adding more oil or ghee in this.

DALIA UPMA (VEGETABLE WHEAT RAVA UPMA)

Preparation Time-15 min

Cooking Time-20 min

Serves- 4 Persons

Ingredients

Broken Wheat Rava or Dalia- 2 cups

Mix Vegetables -2 cups cut in small pieces (French beans, carrot, cauliflower, peas, potato, capsicum etc.)

Oil- 2 tsp

Mustard seeds- 1 tsp

Cumin seeds-1 tsp

Bengal Gram Dal- 1tsp

Broken Black gram Dal- 1 tsp

Dry Red Chillies-2

Curry leaves-few

Onion-2 (Finely Chopped)

Green Chillies- 2 (Slit)

Tomatoes-2 (Finely chopped)

Salt- to taste

Hot water-4 cups

Method

• I have used pressure cooker for making this but you can use a wide mouth pan but in this case the cooking process will be little longer time.

• Wash wheat rava and keep aside.

• Heat oil in a pan and add mustard seeds, cumin seeds, Bengal gram dal, broken black gram dal and dry red chillies.

• Allow mustard seeds to splutter.

• Now add chopped onion and green chillies into it.

• Fry it till onion changes colour to golden brown colour.

• Now add all vegetables and tomatoes to it.

• Fry for couple of minutes and then add washed wheat rava in this.

• Mix it well and fry for another couple of minutes.

• Now add 4 cups hot water in his along with salt.

• Cook in low medium heat till vegetables and rava are cooked properly.

• Serve hot with some healthy chutney and dal.

VENNA PONGAL

The name PONGAL will introduced to the great Tamilnadu.The dish is very traditional and popular in Tamil Nadu.The festival “Pongal” (Makarshankranti) is named only because of this dish but on the festival days the pongal is prepared by new rice and jaggery (gudh).


Pongal is prepared by two ways one is sweet and the other is salty. The salty pongal is called as Venn penal (the word Venn means white) and the sweet pongal is called as Sakkara (Sakkara means sugar or sweet) pongal.Sakkara pongal is prepared on festival days particularly on the day of pongal (Makkarshankranti) and the Venn pongal can be prepared on any day. In hotel of Tamil Nadu and other state in south India, it is prepared for morning breakfast, But it also makes good lunch and dinner.So here is recipe for Venn pongal:-

Venn Pongal

Preparation time: 5 minutes (Approximately)

Cooking time: 15-20 minutes (Approximately)

Serving: 4-6 persons

Ingredients

Rice-2 cups

Split Green Gram (Mung) Dal-1 cup

Milk-1 ½ cups

Crushed pepper Corn (Kali Mirch)-2 tsp

Cumin Seeds (Jeera)-2 tsp

Grated ginger-2 tsp

Salt-to taste

Clarified Butter (Ghee)-4 tabs

Cashew Nut-10-15

Method

• Wash and cook dal and rice together with 8 cups of water and salt.

• Once rice and dal is cooked then mash it by adding milk.

• Put crushed pepper corn, cumin seeds and grated ginger.

• Now heat a pan and add 1 tsp ghee in this.

• Fry cashew nut till it turns to golden colour.

• Now heat remain ghee in same pan and add to pongal and server with samber and Chutney.I serve this with tomato chutney

MY TIPS

• If you want cooking process to be early then soak rice and dal for 30 minutes.

• If you don’t like raw cumin seeds in pongal then fry cumin seeds in ghee and add to pongal.

• In my method of pongal, I add milk only for the richness in the recipe and if you don’t want milk to be added in the dish you can avoid it.

• Curry leaves will also give very nice flavour to pongal and if you want you can add it.

PAKODE WALI KADHI

Kadi aur pakode wali kadi!!!!!!!!


Whatever this is one of my favorite dish which I can eat any number of times in a day. I thought of sharing this recipe with all of you so whoever has not tried this please make and enjoy this wonderful West Indian dish. Even though the dish is very popular in whole India but the dish is very common in Gujarat,Rajasthan,Maharashtra as their daily food.

So let’s start with it:-

PAKODA KADI

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 20 minutes

Serving: 4 persons

Ingredients

For Kadi

Curd-2 cup

Bengal Gram Flour (Besan)-4 tbs

Salt -to taste

Chili Powder -2 tsp

Turmeric Powder -1/2 tsp

For Pakode

Bengal Gram Flour (Besan)-3-4 tbs

Onion-3 medium in size (Finely chopped)

Green Chilies-2-3 finely chopped

Coriander Leaves-2 tsp (Finely chopped)

Salt-to taste

Coriander Powder-1/2 tsp

Oil-for deep frying

For Seasoning

Oil-1 tsp

Mustard Seed (Rai dana)-1 tsp

Broken black gram Dal(Urad Dal)-1/2 tsp

Fenugreek seed (Methi dana)-1/4 tsp

Asafetida (Hing)-a pinch

Dry red chilies-2

Curry leaves (Curry Patta)

Method

For Kadi

• Mix gram flour in curd along with chili and turmeric powder.

• Put this mixture in blender and grind it till flour gets mixed completely with curd.

• Put this mixture in wide open pan and boil it till the raw smell of gram flour goes off.

• Take it off from flame and then put salt and mix well.

For Pakode

• Mix gram flour,green chilies,coriander powder,coriander leaves in onion along with salt.

• Heat oil in a pan.

• Put this mixture like pakoda in pan and deep fry it in low flame.

• Remove pakoda once its done and put it in kitchen paper.

• After a couple of minutes add this pakoda into kadi.

For Seasoing

• Take another pan and put 1tsp oil in this and allow it to get heat up.

• Then put all seasoning items in oil and allow mustard to get crack.

• Season the kadi with this and serve hot with roti or rice.

Tips

• Cut the onion exactly a minute before you start preparing pakode or else the onion will start leaving water from it.

• Don’t ever put salt in kadi while boiling it. If, you do so the curd will get spoil while boiling.

• Keep the kadi steering continuously till it start getting boil or else the gram flour will get set in the bottom of pan and the kadi might get burned.

DALAMMA (A VERY COMMON ORIYA DISH)

Basically, I belong to Bhubaneswar and it is considered as city of temple. In Bhubaneswar 99% people don’t eat non veg and onion garlic on Monday and Thursday. Since Lingaraj temple is in Bhubaneswar and Monday is day of Lord Shiva. That is why in each and every home you will find this dish.

Orissa’s entire big temple also serves this as Prasad. This is also a very health recipe with lots of protein and vitamins since it is cooked with a dal and lots of variety vegetables.

So here is the recipe:

Dalamma

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 25-30 minutes

Serving: 4-6 persons

Ingredients

Red Gram Dal (Toor Dal)-2 cup (Washed and soaked for ½ an hour)

Salt-to taste

Tej Patta-1

Grated ginger-1 tsp

Turmeric Powder-1 tsp

Vegetables

Brinjal-1 (Cut in big pieces nearly 3”-4” inch)

Red pumpkin-1/2 cup (Cut in big pieces 2”-3”inch)

Potato-2 (Cut in Big pieces 2”-3”inch)

Other vegetables-2 cup (Cut in big pieces like flat beans,Tindala,cluster beans, french beans, carrot etc- 1”-2”inch)

Green Banana-1(Cut in big pieces) this is optional

Dalamma masala

Dry Red Chilies-5-6

Cumin seed-4tsp

Black pepper-1tsp

For Seasoning

Ghee-1tsp

Mustard seed-1 tsp

Fenugreek seed-1/2 tsp

Cumin Seed-1/2 tsp

Red Dry Chilies-2

For Garnish

Coriander leaves

Grated Coconut-1/4 cup Optional

Method:

• Take a wide mouth pan and put the soaked red gram dal in this.

• Put in medium flame and allow it to boil.

• Cook the dal till it is half cooked.

• Then add all vegetables into dal, except egg plant, along with turmeric powder, tej patta and salt.

• When the dal and vegetables get cooked then add egg plant and grated ginger

• Cook for 2-3 minutes or till egg plant get tender.

• Remove it from flame.

• Now it is turn for masala preparation, heat another frying pan and put dry red chilies cumin seed and black pepper in this.

• Dry roast all this till cumin seeds change its color.

• Remove it from flame and allow it to get cool down.

• Grind this powder granular in mixer.

• Add this powder to dal.

• For seasoning. In a pan heat ghee and add all seasoning items into it.

• Allow mustard seed to crack.

• Then put this seasoning on the top of dal.

• Garnish it with grated coconut and coriander leaves.

• Serve hot with rice or roti.

TIPS

• Cooking toor dal in open pan will take little longer time. So if you want to make this dish faster you can use pressure cooker. In that case you have to cook dal first in cooker till it is half cooked.Then add all the vegetables and cook till vegetables are cooked.

• If you want to make this dal little less spicy then you can reduce pepper and chilies quantity in masala.

• If you are giving this dal to your toddler one then I would recommend you not to add egg plant in this since egg plant is not recommended to kids less than 2 years.

• Putting green banana is optional in this recipe because if you are putting green banana in this the color of dish will be little black. That is why if you want the dal to maintain as yellow color you can avoid putting green banana in this.

CUMIN PULAO (JEERA RICE)

Today I thought of making one of my all time favourite North Indian dish, any guess??? What it could be??


It is cumin (jeera) rice. The aroma of jeera rice is wonderful. It is very simple to make and also a healthy food if prepared with less fat. Cumin seeds contain large amount of iron and has lots of medicinal effect. Basically the dish is more popular in Punjab but now days you will find it all over. Some of people add onion and ginger garlic paste in jeera rice but I never use, since I feel that jeera rice should have wonderful smell of jeera. The other reason that as I said in my earlier post that my in laws never prefer to eat garlic.That is why my recipe is little bit different and believes me it is as tasty as jeera rice with onion and ginger garlic paste. I make this dish with India Gate Basmati rice but again it is your own choice.

If you have got some unexpected guest at home then I think this will be a ideal choice for your lunch or dinner menu. Since it does not require lots of preparation and ingredients you can make this very quickly. So try this recipe:-

Cumin (Jeera Rice)

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Cooking time: 10 minutes

Serving: 4 persons

Ingredients

Basmati Rice-21/2 cup (Washed and soaked for half an hour)

Cumin (Jeera) Seeds-4 tbs

Butter-2 tbs or less

Salt-to taste

Hot water-4 3/4 cup

Clove-3

Cardamom-2

Bay leaf-1

Cinnamon Stick-1’ inch

Black cardamom-1

Javitri-1

Cashew nut-10-12

Raisine-10

Method

• Take a wide mouth of pan or pressure cooker.

• Heat butter in it with low medium heat.

• Put all gram masala in it.

• Fry in low flame.

• Then put cashew nut and raisin in it and fry till it turn to light pinkish colour.

• Then add cumin seeds (jeera) in it.

• When cumin seeds start changing its colour then add the soaked rice in it.

• Fry till you get nice smell of basmati rice.

• Then add hot water and salt in this.

• Cover the pan with lid and cook in low flame.

• If you use cooker then cook in low flame till you get one whistle.

• Serve hot with any north Indian side dish.

TIPS

• Don’t open the lid if pressure is inside the cooker. Let it get cool down its own.

• If you are cooking in open pan then keep checking the dish in between or else it might get burned.

• You can add little coriander leaves for garnishing the rice if you desire.

TENGA THOGAYAL

COCONUT, the most common intake in south India and off course at my home also. Now a day’s me and my husband are not taking coconut in our food because during our stay in Dubai we have put little weight, so trying to reduce it.


Tenga (coconut) Thogayal is one of very favourite item of every one at my home. My mom in law makes this at least once a week but this I got chance to make this with her guidance. So here is how I made it.





TENGA THOGAYAL (COCONUT CHUTNEY IN TAMIL STYLE)

Preparation Time-10 min

Cooking Time-5 min

Serves- 4 Persons

Ingredients

Whole Black Gram-4 tabs

Whole red chillis-6

Whole asafoetida-as small as ½ grape

Grated coconut-1/2 cup

Tamarind –as small as a small lemon (soaked in water for 10-15 minutes)

Oil-2 tsp



Method

• Heat oil in a pan.

• Put black gram, red chillies and asafoetida and fry till you get very nice aroma of black gram and it turns to red in colour.

• Remove it from fir and allow it to get cool down.

• Take of pulp out of soaked tamarind.

• Once it is cooled then takes a chutney jar and put the all fried items in this.

• Grind it to granular powder.

• Now add coconut and grind it along with tamarind pulp and salt.

• Serve with typical South Indian meals.